


Heroes Stick Together

by DarkAkumaHunter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-22 03:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9580523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkAkumaHunter/pseuds/DarkAkumaHunter
Summary: Harry’s done with wizards, but he still wants to help; by now the urge is practically burned into his DNA. The Justice League gives him that chance. But the sidekicks, the next generation, they worry him. He knows what it’s like to be a teen on a mission, and he won’t stand by and watch them become jaded. He won’t.(I can't think of any tags for this at the moment so yeah)





	1. Prologue - From Saviour to Hero

**Author's Note:**

> This is the rewrite of a story I never got around to posting here on AO3.
> 
> The prologue rewrite got... way out of hand (seriously the original was only like 900 words). I haven't started the rewrite of the first chapter yet but this may end up being longer than some of the main chapters. Oh well. That's just how it played out.
> 
> Follow my new writing [tumblr](http://aj-writes-fic.tumblr.com/) for progress updates and fic chat.

Harry Potter had spent the last seven years of his life adjusting to living under the public eye. If there was one thing he’d learnt from all of it, it was that the general public flocked together, and their opinions were as fickle as the weather – mostly unpredictable and constantly shifting. So, once the shock and excitement that flooded the wizarding community upon Voldemort’s death wore off, Harry had been biding his time, waiting until the tide inevitably turned against him.

One thing about wizards: you could count on them to fear power. That was clear as day, even going off of what little he actually knew about their history. Harry, a seventeen year old who hadn’t even graduated from school (though through no fault of his own), had managed to defeat the most powerful dark wizard of the late twentieth century. That made him dangerous. In a society that had been running on fear and adrenaline for longer than Harry cared to ponder, it had only been a matter of time before they stopped seeing him as a saviour and started eyeing him nervously, as though any day he might decide to go dark side.

While Harry himself took the eventual change in stride, his friends weren’t afraid to express their discontent about the issue. Many an afternoon was spent listening to aggravated complaints about the _Daily Prophet_ and the Ministry and whoever else had had a bad word to say about him since the last time they spoke. For a time, he found that amusing. It was nice, after all, to have verbal confirmation that the people he called friends weren’t so easily swayed by majority opinion. Eventually, however, it began to grate on him.

Sometimes they had suggestions. Possible ways to try and garner back his good image in the eye of the public. Go make a speech, they said, rally a protest. Do _something_ , don’t just sit there and take it.

But Harry wasn’t interested in winning the public over. Not when they’d change their minds again as soon as someone whispered a semi-believable reason into their ear. While he might not have _enjoyed_ having people fear him or glare at him in the streets, he had accepted that that was the way things were going to be, and he was fine with it. What he _wasn’t_ fine with was the way his friends seemed to believe that his own self-worth could only be proven by fixing this apparent flaw in their society.

Being publicly hated wasn’t exactly fun, but being loved hadn’t been any better. The limelight was the limelight, regardless of which way people looked at you. He’d rather they didn’t look at all.

No one could understand why he wasn’t fighting to save his reputation. He couldn’t understand why everyone thought he needed to.

**oOoOo**

Harry left England when he was nineteen.

He did it quietly. There had been minimal planning involved, nothing incriminating left around to accidentally be read by the visitor of the week, and he told no one of his intentions.

He didn’t really have a goal in mind when he made the decision. All he wanted was to spend some time in a place where he didn’t mean anything; where he could do as much or as little as he pleased and be known for himself, not for the legend people made of him. Was a little freedom really so much to ask?

At first he stayed relatively local. He wandered about parts of Scotland and Ireland, reacquainting himself with muggle life and learning about all the different things he’d missed over the last two years of near-complete isolation. It was such a breath of fresh air to be just another face in the crowd, an aimless traveller with no goal or expectations. But it quickly became apparent to him that he wasn’t cut out for the whole tourist thing. Taking time for himself was great and all, as was finally being free of his own self-imposed quasi-imprisonment in Grimmauld Place, but in the end, ‘taking time for himself’ was what he had been doing from the moment Voldemort left the land of the living for good.

What it all boiled down to was this: Harry was bored. In one way or another, his entire life up until that point had been a near-constant flow of low-level adrenaline – strategizing ways to survive, fighting for his life, investigating mysterious goings-on – and while it was easy to give the British Wizarding Community the finger and run off, it was far less so trying to live a calm and quiet life.

And so began his world tour of self-discovery.

**oOoOo**

During his travels, Harry learnt a lot of things that had slipped his notice during his years living with the Dursleys.

For one, they were living in an age of superheroes. The thought had never even crossed his mind – Dudley had never been interested in comics and so, ultimately, neither had Harry – until he saw an article in a newspaper about the apparent rise in vigilante justice in major cities. It called out to him, to the part of him that wasn’t satisfied with doing invisible favours for people in passing as he travelled from country to country, to the part of him that had been a little reluctant to hammer that final nail in Voldemort’s coffin because it would mean losing his sense of purpose.

Yes, most people would say he’d earned his peace, and he should probably just be grateful for it after the disaster of danger that had made up his childhood, but he wasn’t content with the idea of just giving it all up. What would he do with his life if he wasn’t partaking in outlandish plans to protect some portion of humanity? He hadn’t taken his NEWTs, so his prospects in the wizarding world relied solely upon how each individual employer felt about Harry Potter, Defeater of Dark Lords, and he hadn’t attended a muggle school since he was ten, so regular work in the mundane world was out too.

It was a good thing he didn’t have his heart set on anything quite so normal.

Something else he’d noticed was just how _easy_ it seemed to be to get away with using magic. He carried his wand with him at all times, but – to the probable horror of every pureblooded wizard ever – he had transfigured it into a ring which he wore on his right hand. Even if he was caught essentially red-handed, no one had ever looked at him and screamed bloody murder about magic and wizards and whatever conspiracy might come to mind involving the two. Because the world, this world that had no clue it was inhabited by a group of wand-waving magic users, was already privy to far stranger things – metahumans and aliens and strange powers that would honestly put wizards to shame.

When you put two and two together, Harry decided that that was as good as it was going to get. These superpowered muggles, these aliens and people from places Harry had never heard of, they were split into two basic categories: heroes and villains. And oh, Harry was so used to being a hero that the thought of passing up the chance to use this knowledge, to take advantage, to forge himself a new place in the world, never even crossed his mind. That was the only thing that Harry could do which would give his life a purpose again.

He was going to become a hero.

**oOoOo**

His decision to get back into the hero business didn’t put a stop to his travels, not in the beginning. All it meant was that his old policy of trying not to get involved was torn to shreds.

If there was a problem, Harry stepped in. He’d learnt subtlety with his magic somewhere along the line, and he wasn’t half-bad at hand-to-hand combat, so he took it upon himself to act when others couldn’t. He caused ripples, and then waves, until he started arriving in new cities only to hear that whispers of his exploits had beat him there.

It was with these whispers that Harry found rumours. People wanted to know what was happening, so they were building their own explanations. Was he a rogue crime-fighter, doing as he pleased in disregard of the law? (Yes.) Was he affiliated with someone? Was he part of a team? Was what seemed like one person actually the work of many people in many different places? Was he a new member of the Justice League?

Up until then Harry had never heard of the Justice League. Well, never in so many words. It was the rumours about his membership status that connected a lot of the dots between different reports of vigilantes and heroes that he’d stumbled across here and there (he only read newspapers occasionally, and mostly only to check that the world was still intact). They weren’t exactly a Big News thing – the rumours only cropped up in certain circles (mostly criminal circles and wannabe heroes who kept their ears to the ground for things like that) – but it was enough to catch his interest, enough to call it quits on the years of continent hopping that he’d been engaged in and decide to get stuck in with investigating the ins and outs of hero team-ups in the US.

Truth be told, the whole roving vigilante thing was a lonely business. He wasn’t afraid to admit that he was interested in making some like-minded companions to ease the isolation he’d placed on himself.

**oOoOo**

It wasn’t until later that Harry started wondering about the detrimental effects of his solitary travels. He was twenty-five, an adult in his own right, searching the country for a group that was pretending not to exist, but he found himself adverse to the idea of trusting in other adults. His childhood, his teenage years, they’d all been one manipulation after another. Being ignored, dismissed, betrayed; those sorts of things left a mark. He’d been a kid looking for guidance only to find it impossible to figure out if anyone was going to take him seriously, and then he’d more or less refused to make any new connections with anyone once the war was over.

How long had it been since he actually tried to make a friend?

**oOoOo**

In the end, it was the League that found him. A string of right-place right-time incidents had drawn their attention to him as he drifted from state to state – stopping a robbery in Metropolis, helping contain an industrial fire in Central, hexing a would-be rapist in Gotham. Even though they were still trying to keep their Super-Secret Superhero Alliance on the down low, it seemed there were some things they couldn’t outright ignore.

It was a man clad in black – Batman, apparently – who tracked him down. As far as Harry could tell, Batman had taken offense to an unknown party involving themselves in Gotham’s underworld, regardless of the fact that Harry had only been in the city for a handful of days, just another stop on an endless road-trip. He might have been content to let bygones be bygones once Harry left, considering he’d only tripped up a few criminals and hadn’t harmed any civilians, but reports from other cities, and from other heroes, about his exploits had placed him on Batman’s watch list.

It wasn’t that he was considered a danger, necessarily, Batman explained in short sentences from the darkest depths of the shadows in the alleyway he’d cornered Harry in; he was simply an unknown entity that required investigation. An investigation which apparently had already been conducted and concluded, without Harry’s notice. Back in Britain Harry might have scolded himself for letting such a thing happen without ever catching on, but he doubted Batman had actually been shadowing him in person – if he was so on edge that he flinched from security cameras he’d never be able to get anything done.

Batman didn’t go into any details about the investigation. Instead, he listed off a time and place and said that if Harry could get there – making it sound like a goddamned challenge – then, and only then, would they explain things. Harry agreed, and Batman disappeared in the blink of an eye, an impressive feat for someone without magic.

**oOoOo**

Mount Justice was not exactly what Harry had been expecting when he made it to the coordinates Batman left him. It wasn’t that he’d had anything specific in mind, it just hadn’t occurred to him that the coordinates might actually have been to their Super-Secret Base and that that Super-Secret Base was inside a mountain.

It did, however, confirm his suspicions that it was a Justice League thing, and not a Batman thing. He’d been a little unsure about that, because surely their little hero crew had someone more sociable than Batman who could’ve come to fill him in. Intimidation tactics _were_ probably the best way to go about it though.

He’d like to say they’d laid out the red carpet welcome for him, but it was more of an all-hands-on-deck-in-case-we-misjudged-this-guy deal instead. The group was ten strong; even if they’d just been wizards (or plain, non-powered muggles) Harry would’ve had his work cut out for him in a ten-on-one fight, but they were all unknown elements, just as he had been (and likely still was) to them. Even if he’d come here looking for a fight, only a fool would antagonise that many people without information to back them up.

Surrounded on all sides, in the middle of a mountain, Harry had his first encounter with aliens, and started a probationary partnership with the still semi-unofficial Justice League.

**oOoOo**

For a while after their initial meeting, Harry practically lived in the Secret Sanctuary. Since he’d constantly been drifting from city to city across the country – across the _world_ – he’d never made a point to put down roots anywhere, so he didn’t exactly have anywhere to go home _to_. Plus, it made it easier for everyone else to monitor him (which Superman assured they weren’t doing, but Harry knew someone – likely Batman – had eyes on him at all times).

The first month felt like a test. Harry was on a code-name only basis with all the Leaguers, and he was dragged all about the mountain each day for various assessments and training sessions. He tried not to feel too annoyed about it; he knew they only wanted to get a feel for his powers, his physical strength, his reliability, but he didn’t always like the way they looked at him. Searching, calculating, like they were trying to decipher the secrets of his existence.

Magic, it seemed, even in the company of aliens and winged people, was still considered an anomaly. So he never showed anyone his wand – not its true form at any rate – and cast nonverbally at all times (anything he hadn’t mastered silent casting for by then was generally unnecessary for combat, defence, or stealth, the three things he’d been using his magic for the most since leaving the wizarding world behind), and eventually the novelty of his magic seemed to wear off. As long as it wasn’t being used against them, they seemed perfectly happy to take his existence at face value. (He was also 110% certain that Batman had taken some of the blood from his medical examination to try and analyse whether his magic was in his genetic make-up. Harry wasn’t even annoyed about it – he’d kind of like to know himself.)

After the first month things calmed down a bit. Training sessions were no longer assessments but actual practice. He learned more actual physical combat than he ever thought he would have. Martian Manhunter and the Flash introduced themselves properly. Harry bought an apartment in Happy Harbour. He started going out on assignments with other Leaguers – but never the really risky stuff; that wasn’t a level of trust a month of acquaintanceship could conjure up.

Green Arrow (potentially under threat of death from Batman) was seemingly appointed the task of convincing Harry that a superhero uniform was in his best interests.

“You need a disguise,” he insisted, like a broken record, every time the two of them were together. “It’s all well and good _us_ knowing your civilian ID, but you don’t want everyone else knowing. What if it endangers your family?”

Harry always laughed at that, though the sentiment changed from day to day. Amusement. Derision. A sarcastic snort of laughter that no one had the information to understand. Fond exasperation. Tired exasperation. Every laugh a story no one could figure out.

“I don’t have a family,” Harry always answered, which was true in several senses. His parents were dead. His godfather, dead. There was very likely no muggle record of his mother getting married, and so his aunt and uncle would happily pretend they had no relation to him, until the moment him being a superhero could somehow benefit them (and then, unless Harry acknowledged it, that same lack of records worked against them just as well). The only people he considered family were all family of the heart, self-made, and with no connections to him in the muggle world. Out here, Harry was less than a nobody – he disappeared off the radar at age eleven and never came back. What could anyone possibly do with that, even if they somehow managed to connect him to a vanishing child in the UK?

“At least wear a mask,” Green Arrow eventually begged. Well, Harry imagined it was as close to begging as he would allow himself, and he was only pushing the issue because braver men than he still couldn’t always say no to Batman.

Harry didn’t have anything against the _idea_ of a costume. He understood what they were for, why they wore them. But he didn’t have it in him to design one, and he _also_ didn’t trust anyone else to design one that didn’t have an uncomfortable amount of lycra. Mask though, there was nothing wrong with a mask.

“It’ll need prescription lenses,” Harry offered in lieu of an answer, gesturing at his glasses. He’d had his prescription changed and bought new frames since moving into the muggle world, but he’d never made an effort to seek out any magical vision treatments, and he wasn’t fond of contacts.

Green Arrow grinned, obviously relieved to finally have made some progress, and more, to finally have something positive to report back. Harry liked to think of it as his good deed for the day.

Harry had felt like he’d won a battle when the costume debate ended with the delivery of his mask. It turned out, instead, that given his vocal and repeated opposition to the idea, all other decisions were being made without his input. That was how he ended up with the code-name ‘Magician’ – which he had hoped was a joke, when he first heard it, but eventually he gave in and let them have their way. It wasn’t the worst thing they could’ve come up with, after all.

**oOoOo**

His full membership was confirmed in the aftermath of an attack which forced the Leaguers to abandon the Secret Sanctuary and Mount Justice. The official ceremony happened _in space_ , because it turned out that they had another extra secret base that Harry hadn’t been told about until he was being pushed through a zeta-beam transporter only to find himself staring down at the Earth.

With that, the Magician became the eleventh member of the Justice League.

As a full member, the rest of the team started lowering their guards around him and sharing bits and pieces of their lives (Batman aside – though Harry had never expected anything from him).

Green Arrow had become Oliver Queen (and had in turn been teased by Barry for a week because Harry hadn’t realised Oliver was apparently someone he was supposed to recognise). The three of them became pretty good friends, once Oliver gave up the pretence of secret-keeping, and out of everyone in the League it was their company that Harry most often found himself in. They were the closest thing to familiar he had in a life that still sometimes seemed too strange to be real.

**oOoOo**

Harry was used to being a part of secret organisations, such as the Order of the Phoenix and the DA, but the Justice League was his first foray into an openly operating, publically acknowledged group. The shift from unofficial to official didn’t change much internally, but it did confuse him just a little.

Was the Hall of Justice really necessary? Wasn’t that sort of flashy?

Eight years in wizarding Britain and he still didn’t know how best to deal with the media. Thankfully no one had suggested he be their PR guy – everyone was content for him to take a backseat in all their media dealings. He wasn’t there to smile for the camera after all – he was there to protect people.

Barry thought his discomfort with the media was funny. He didn’t talk about his past, ever, so Barry had to find all his teasing material in the present, and since Harry didn’t snap at him about it it seemed like free game. Harry just rolled his eyes whenever he brought it up.

Oliver had a good poker face, but Harry could tell that he wasn’t always a fan of the media either. By then he knew, of course, that Oliver had spent a lot of time in the limelight himself – he could certainly play them far better than Harry would ever have been able to. It was a little comforting to know that, even though they never discussed it, and Oliver would never know just how well acquainted with the media Harry actually was, he had found himself in the company of someone who knew exactly why Harry hadn’t bothered fighting the reporters back home.

They were a weird bunch, but this was his life now, and he was perfectly okay with it.

**oOoOo**

Meeting Giovanni Zatara was… amazing. A shock. Surprising. Confusing.

It was an experience.

Zatara was one of the newer members of the Justice League – after going public they’d slowly drawn the interest of, or discovered, a handful more like-minded vigilantes (although they were all technically heroes now). Harry hadn’t met him straight away – he liked to stay busy, so he usually had a fairly constant stream of missions coming his way, even if a lot of them were often recon or surveillance – but when he did he’d been (perhaps unreasonably) surprised to find that he was a magic user.

He called himself a magician, though Harry had known even before he said it that he wasn’t a wizard. Still, that term was no longer a reason to dismiss a person’s legitimacy – Harry had spent the last ten years discovering all sorts of unreal things outside of his version of magic after all.

Harry had never really considered himself the sort of person who got excited about learning new things – that had always been Hermione’s territory – but witnessing Zatara’s own form of magic first-hand was a fascinating experience. It was _so different_ to the way Harry had learned magic, and so much more flexible – if you had the imagination and quick thought for it. He was certain that, were he even capable of attempting Zatara’s magic, he would be utterly pants at it.

There was also a period of time, when the fascination began to wear off, when Zatara’s presence caused Harry no small amount of paranoia. As he himself had recognised, the differences in their magic were very obvious to any observer – that meant they had studied different things, in different places, and were all in all only similar in the fact that they could do a multitude of unscientific things.

Zatara called himself a magician, and Harry’s codename was (still) Magician, but they were nothing alike. He had been worried that those differences would draw attention, and then curiosity, and then investigation. Eventually, however, he realised that he wasn’t giving the League enough credit. They had done their checks on him, and they had accepted him, and they knew him. His magic being different to Zatara’s didn’t mean he was immediately a suspicious person, and it didn’t mean they were going to go off looking for other people like him, just as they hadn’t gone out of their way to find people like Zatara.

There would always be a small tickle of paranoia in the back of his mind, reminding him about the Statute of Secrecy and how he was in the public eye now and one day he might slip up and ruin everything, but for the most part he managed to ignore it.

**oOoOo**

Ever since he first caught wind of the fact that some of the Leaguers had young protégés, Harry had started making an effort to get to know them whenever he had some down-time. It made for a lot more travel – no more lazing about at home and taking a break from mission travel across the country (and the world) – but in the end it was no big obstacle. There were more important things in life than slow mornings and days off.

The idea had been an alarming one, with fear born from personal experience, right up until he actually met the kids face to face. Despite his own misgivings it was clear that the four boys knew exactly what they were doing, and that they hadn’t been thrust, unknowing, into their roles. The evidence made him feel better, but Harry never did manage to fully shake the concern that their existence created deep within his heart.

No matter how hard he tried, Harry couldn’t help but see a bit of himself in each of them, and so found himself unable to keep his nose out of things. He didn’t pry, but he made himself available to them in ways that their respective hero mentors sometimes couldn’t. They had guidance – more guidance than he’d had, for sure – but that didn’t mean they couldn’t use a friendly ear, or someone different to touch base with.

Although Barry and Oliver had become good friends of his over the years, Harry wasn’t overly surprised to find that he found it easier to confide about some things to the teens instead. There existed between the five a certain sense of empathy and understanding that Harry didn’t think he’d ever be able to properly create with someone he’d only met once they were older and jaded.

It was nothing like he’d felt around the Weasley clan, but nevertheless, Harry found himself developing a mildly familial affection for the teens. They weren’t his responsibility, and they didn’t want or expect him to protect them. All they wanted was someone to listen to them, and Harry was happy to be that person.

**oOoOo**

Harry was inching steadily towards thirty when the balance suddenly shifted.

Later, he would regret that he hadn’t seen the signs sooner, but there was nothing he could have done to change the League’s mind. All he could do was wade through the aftermath and do his best to try and hold things together.


	2. Independence Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man I hate writing this story - although maybe this was just particularly bad because rewrites are terrible. I've had most of it done for a while now but then I just got really annoyed and closed the doc and tried to focus on RWW instead.
> 
> I mentioned MACUSA like, once. They aren't going to be an important part of the story, they just exist, and, given it's the 21st century and also a world of metahumans and aliens and mystics, their laws aren't as strict or anti-muggle as in Fantastic Beasts.
> 
> Also I haven't read most of this chapter in months so if it's a horrible mess, well...

_Washington DC  
July 4 th 2010_

Today was an important day. Harry wouldn’t have been able to forget that fact if he tried, since Kid Flash had brought it up in conversation at least once every single time they had crossed paths since the decision was made. Speedy wasn’t one to kick up a fuss, and neither was Aqualad, but Wally had been more than excited enough to make up for them, and even Robin hadn’t completely been able to hide his anticipation as the day had drawn closer.

So yeah. Harry was well aware that today was an important day for them – he’d even helped them plead their case – but he couldn’t bring himself to be as jubilant and cheerful as his favourite speedster (sorry Barry) had been all week. There was this slight niggling feeling at the back of his mind, a minor discomfit he hadn’t been able to shake all day. In other words, he had a bad feeling about today.

Harry had known Batman for a reasonably long amount of time now, and while that meant he still knew almost exactly nothing about him on a personal level, he’d come to understand, at least a bit, his attitude towards crime fighting and the Justice League. While he’d been happy at the time that the kids had finally had something go their way, suspicion had crept up on him in the days after. Batman was not the kind of guy to change his mind on a whim – to suddenly up and let the kids have their way meant he’d probably found a convenient loophole to give them exactly what they asked for but none of what they wanted.

If that was true it was worse than just refusing them outright. They _would_ find out, one way or another, sooner or later, and it would not be pretty when they did.

**oOoOo**

Harry had mixed feelings about the Hall of Justice; he always had and he always would.

So much of his childhood had been tangled up in underground militia-style war-tactics that having a big flashy museum dedicated to their cause had initially made his skin crawl with anxiety. He still found it uncomfortably public, but it _did_ make a good bluff for that self-same public – the Big Bads of the world would never believe the Hall was actually their legitimate base of operations, and so the likelihood of them attacking for anything other than to simply cause a scene was fairly low, and any lower class of villain would generally never work up the guts for a full-frontal assault like that.

The one thing Harry _did_ like about the Hall of Justice was its library. (Although he could’ve quite happily gone without the viewing windows wrapped around the upper level of the entire room.) It was here, reluctantly not under a disillusionment charm or his invisibility cloak, that Harry whiled away the early afternoon until Batman’s designated ‘tour’ time. He could’ve stayed at home until right beforehand – he’d promised to be there but that didn’t mean he had to spend all day at the Hall – but after lunch the idea of being confined in the house had only made him agitated and liable to pace a hole in the carpet. (He could wholeheartedly blame his tingling paranoia for that one.)

Being in the Hall’s library didn’t offer much of a sense of calm. What it _did_ offer was an audience. From his own experiences and some media tips from Oliver, Harry had grown accustomed to acting with a certain level of dignity and togetherness when in the public eye. It didn’t matter how nervous or agitated or even reluctantly excited he might have been, in the Hall he needed to display an outward sense of calm and stability. That training was the only thing keeping him in a chair instead of ceaselessly wandering the perimeter of the room.

The doors leading out to the transporters opened with a whoosh. Harry glanced up from the book he had been reading – or rather, the book he’d been staring blankly at for the last however many minutes – to see Martian Manhunter stepping into the room. He paused upon noticing Harry, but appeared entirely unsurprised by his presence.

“I believe it is time for the others to arrive. Would you like to come and greet them?”

Harry stood, sending the book floating back to its shelf with a lazy wave of his hand, and (ignoring the soft gasps from some of the tourists at the casual display of magic) offered up a smile.

“Of course. Why do you think I’m here?”

J’onn levelled a warm look in his direction as Harry readjusted his mask and kindly didn’t say anything about work or being on-call.

Harry motioned for him to lead the way, and Manhunter headed towards the entrance. Harry fell into step just behind him, taking a few deep breaths to dispel some of his wariness in order to put on a mostly-genuine smile for the teens. Red Tornado joined them in the hallway, a silent presence at their side. Momentarily out of sight of the public, Harry’s questing fingers twisted the holly ring on his right hand, reassuring himself of its presence.

J’onn’s stride faltered for the briefest of moments as the doors to the entrance hall slid open. Harry came to a natural stop just inside the hallway as J’onn continued several paces out, shoulders back and head held high even as part of him wanted to slip into the shadows.

Eight people stood before them: mentors and protégés. There was also a noticeable crowd, but at this point none of them were strangers to attention, and no one paid them any mind.

Anxious or not, Harry found a fond smile curving his lips up as he looked over the teens. They’d never spent any time together as a group, and seeing them like this was a little strange, but they were all so obviously excited in their own ways as Manhunter offered up a concise greeting; how could he do anything else but smile?

Leaving the crowd behind them they wandered about in a bare-bones tour of the Hall. J’onn listed off the teens’ new access privileges and Harry gave a little wave or nod whenever he met someone’s gaze, walking unobtrusively along the edge of the hallway. When they reached the library and it became clear that the introductory tour was at an end, Harry’s heart sank as he realised his bad feeling had been completely justified.

It had been a little far-fetched to expect Batman to actually allow them into the Watchtower, but Harry had still held out hope that he wouldn’t be this cruel about it. He leaned against a bookshelf, hiding himself from one half of their watchers, and crossed his arms tightly over his chest, praying for patience.

The teens settled themselves in the sparse selection of furniture, getting comfortable after their idea of ‘mission accomplished’. All of them except Speedy.

Roy watched as the Leaguers turned towards each other, slipping from welcome mode into business mode within one moment and the next, and then turned and caught Harry’s eye. Harry grimaced and shrugged a shoulder, one ear on Batman as he started an intel brainstorm about today’s ice villains and the rest of his attention on the tension thrumming through Speedy’s stance.

He considered stepping in, maybe taking Speedy aside and trying to talk to him before he exploded into anger, but it wasn’t his place. Not just because Green Arrow was his mentor and had known him longer and should know what to say, but because Harry knew what it was like to be manipulated and lied to and how he had despised it when people tried to placate him in his anger. He would not force himself to be one of those people now just because he was older.

Batman turned towards the scanner and the door to the teleporter and Harry knew that that was the last straw.

“That’s _it?_ ” Speedy interjected, words clipped and cold in his simmering anger. He marched towards them, drawing everyone’s attention. “You promised us a _real_ look inside, not some glorified backstage pass.”

“It’s a first step,” Aquaman said in a tone that was probably supposed to be reassuring. For a King his ability to read the mood was sometimes startlingly lacking. “You’ve been granted access few others get.”

Speedy laughed, biting and bitter, and gestured emphatically to the camera-wielding tourists that lined the windows overlooking the library.

“Oh _really_. Who cares what side of the glass we’re on?”

It was a valid point. The only difference was access to a training facility that was barely ever used, and the fact that no one could hear them from outside. If they could, then this argument would be making the rounds on the internet before the day was out.

Harry pushed off of the bookcase as Oliver stepped forward, pleading patience from his protégé. Oliver may have been one of his closest friends in the League but dear Merlin he didn’t understand how to deal with young adults. He settled his hands briefly on Robin and Kid Flash’s shoulders, garnering confused looks from them both, before continuing towards the standoff as Roy rounded his attention on his bemused peers instead.

“They’re treating us like kids,” he insisted, anger only intensifying under the admonishments. “Worse, like _side-kicks_.”

Side-kick didn’t have any negative connotations to the others, not yet, but it would obviously grate on a person as they got older. Roy was eighteen; no adult appreciated being relegated to _side-kick._

Harry shot Oliver a look, daring him to speak up but begging him to hold his tongue, and stepped up in front of Speedy, uncaring of the unimpressed stare Batman was levelling on the both of them – probably for being time-wasters.

“Roy, listen to me for a moment.”

He clenched his jaw, angrily biting back the continued torrent of words, even if just for a moment.

“You have _every right_ to be angry, you hear me? _Every right._ ” Harry flung his arms wide, gesturing to the entire room. “But this is not the place to have this argument.”

Speedy was audibly grinding his teeth.

“I’m not asking you to let it go,” Harry continued, while he still had the chance to do so. “Hell, fight for it, I’m with you on that, okay? But put it aside. Let’s not do this today.”

“Um.” Kid Flash spoke up for the first time, giving voice to what all three of the other teens were feeling. “I’m confused. Why is Speedy so angry?”

“ _Because,_ ” Roy spat, unable to maintain his silence any longer, “this is all just a game to them. This whole day was just a farce. Did you know that this isn’t even the League’s real headquarters?”

Harry flicked his gaze over to Batman. His scowl, ever present, darkened significantly as he turned it on Oliver. Green Arrow shrugged sheepishly but refused to wilt under the heavy glare.

“I thought maybe we could make an exception?” Oliver’s reason for filling Roy in obviously wasn’t good enough for Batman, but it was a perfectly reasonable thought process to Harry. Even if Batman was against Robin knowing, as the youngest, Roy was an adult who ought to have earned the right to that knowledge by now.

Harry seconded Oliver’s defence. “I agree. This is far from what I was aiming for when I asked you to reconsider your stance. Manipulating the situation and lying to the people you work with will grant you no favours here. Regardless, I admit my own mistake for taking your acquiescence at face value. I will not make that mistake again.”

“Stand down, both of you,” Aquaman commanded.

None of it was helping. Roy’s rage was a full-bodied beast now, and he trembled with it.

“You incite rebellion when you should be bringing it to an end.” Aquaman directed the reprimand at Harry, before shifting to Speedy. “Son, you do yourself no justice arguing here. Cease this at once.”

Roy bristled.

“Or _what?_ You’ll send me to my room? And I’m _not_ your son. I’m not even _his_! I thought I was his partner, but…” he paused, almost as if waiting for Oliver to interject, but then kept going, tone dark. “Not anymore.”

Speedy ripped the hat off of his head and threw it to the ground, as if his statement had needed any clarification.

He edged around Harry, angry and hurting. Harry followed him across the room, catching his wrist and pulling him to a standstill.

“Please don’t leave like this,” Harry pleaded, voice pitched low for privacy.

“Sorry.” Roy answered in kind. He refused to meet Harry’s gaze. “But I just… I can’t deal with them right now. Any of them.”

Harry tightened his grip, squeezing his wrist once in reassurance.

“Stay in touch?”

“Promise.” When Harry relinquished his grasp Roy raised his voice, directing his next words to the three teens who hovered awkwardly, half-risen from their chairs like they wanted to act but had no idea how to move. “I guess they were right about you three. You’re not ready.” He stalked off before anyone else had a chance to try and stop him.

Slowly, muscles coiled tense, Harry turned to face the Leaguers again, catching a glimpse of the shell-shocked confusion that rippled across the remaining teens. He inhaled deeply and took a menacing step forward.

“ _This_ is what I was worried about!” Harry snarled, wishing he was brave enough to jab a finger into Batman’s chest just to emphasise the point. “This is what _happens_ when you make promises with no intention of following through and then just expect everything to be hunky dory. You’re a confusing and infuriating man, but I have respected you as a leader for the past five years. But you will _not_ treat these kids the way my headmaster treated me – I will fight you _every step of the way_.”

That sent a wave of confused whispers through his fellow teammates – Harry never spoke on his past, and Batman had never had anything to say either, in warning or in praise. (They didn’t know it was because there had been nothing to find.)

“Magician.” Batman didn’t raise his voice, but all the hushed conversation stopped instantly. Everyone knew Harry hated the codename they’d assigned him, and it was only ever enforced while he was out on a mission. The word was a reprimand all on its own.

Harry scrambled for something to throw back at him before Batman shut him down for good, but the computer monitor flickered on with a low hum, followed by a stern transmission alarm, and Superman’s voice redirected everyone’s attention away from their spat.

“Superman to Justice League. There’s been an explosion at Project Cadmus; it’s on fire.”

Harry snorted. Oh no, a _fire_.

Batman moved to organise a plan of action with Superman, but another transmission interrupted them. It was Zatara – Wotan was trying to blot out the sun.

A part of Harry deep down wanted to be petty and sit this one out – he definitely could’ve walked out and just gone home if it was only the Cadmus fire – but he wasn’t selfish enough to think his anger was more important than protecting the planet. Zatara had requested full League back-up, and that’s what Batman was going to order, and Harry was going to be there whether he liked it or not.

While the others talked briefly with Superman and Zatara, the teens approached Harry where he stood aimlessly in the centre of the room.

“Hey man.” Wally brushed his knuckles across Harry’s arm in a feather-light punch. “I, uh, I don’t totally understand what just happened, but thanks for sticking up for Speedy.”

“Man you totally just yelled at B. I knew I liked you for a reason.”

Kaldur eyed Robin reprovingly and added, “Shouting aside, you tried your best. That is all we could have asked for.”

Harry sighed, long and low. “You guys are more mature than I am sometimes.”

“We have our moments.”

Harry gave the dark-skinned boy a wry smile, but it twisted quickly into a scowl when Batman called out to him again.

“Magician.” He was still mad. “We need every available League member on hand. That means you.”

The teens bristled at their obvious exclusion, but Harry didn’t have the wherewithal for more damage control just then. He obediently headed over to the scanner and the teleporter so everyone could move out.

“Stay here,” Batman ordered the trio in a clipped voice somewhere off to Harry’s left. They may have complained, but Harry wasn’t listening, already caught up in the motion of departure.

**oOoOo**

They made a brief pit stop in the Watchtower to group together and confirm the situation before teleporting as close to Zatara’s coordinates as they could.

Harry hadn’t exactly been paying attention to the nitty-gritty details, and he had no idea where they were when they arrived – geography was not his strong point – but he knew what needed to be done, and that was all that mattered.

For all that Harry admired Zatara and what the existence of different types of magic might mean, he hated fighting in close proximity to him for that very same reason. In that vein, Wotan – ancient and questionably immortal and with who knew what sort of knowledge about the varied magics of the world – was the villain he most hated fighting against. They forced him to limit himself, fear of the Statute always lingering annoyingly in the back of his mind when they were around.

The MACUSA had been kind enough about setting up a flu connection for him, but he didn’t think that same courtesy would apply if he exposed their entire race to a crazed sorcerer who wanted to destroy the world.

Full-League fights were always something like controlled chaos in Harry’s mind – so many people with so many different skills and fighting styles, so many people to take into account and to stay out of the way of and to avoid accidentally attacking.

Without his broom Harry was earthbound, but it was a small price to pay to avoid perpetuating stereotypes. Besides, he’d never gotten particularly used to the sensation of casting while in flight, as it required a whole different sort of concentration and technique to casting while running. On his own that might sometimes make him feel backed into a corner, but there were plenty of heroes around to take to the air in his place.

It wasn’t until they’d been locked in battle for almost half an hour that Harry remembered what it meant that Wotan didn’t use the same magic he did. He cursed at himself a little, then tried a summoning charm on the amulet that was at the centre of this whole debacle.

If he was fighting a wizard, they almost definitely would have put wards in place to prevent it being stolen by something as rudimentary as a simple _accio_ , but Harry had learnt through trial and error that other magical and mystic beings – old and long dead, like whoever created the amulet, or old and still kicking, like Wotan himself – didn’t usually possess the same attitude towards protections. Perhaps direct thievery like that was something outside of the range of a sorcerer’s skill-set. Whatever the reason, the amulet wrenched free of Wotan’s grasp and rocketed across the battlefield towards Harry.

For a split-second everyone seemed to stop, watching the amulet soar through the air, but then Wotan screamed in outrage and everyone snapped back into action.

Knowing that he was now Wotan’s main target, Harry banished the amulet to the Watchtower the moment it graced his palm. Without the extra strain of trying to protect the sun, they could focus entirely on shutting Wotan down.

Wotan was not gentle in his anger.

By the time they had him pinned down and encaged, courtesy of Green Lantern, Harry’s entire body ached. He’d been tossed about and thrown into other people and trees and anything else in the vicinity of the battle, and he was pretty sure he’d be a walking bruise over the next few days. Most of it should be centred underneath his clothes, and potions would accelerate the healing and help with the pain; he just had to avoid anyone seeing too many of the bruises. It was the regular old song and dance where he avoided being put under suspicion of being less-than-human for possessing accelerated natural healing.

One good thing which arose from the prolonged battle was that Harry had had plenty of opportunity to work off the anger and frustration that had been burning just beneath the surface. Now, instead of red-hot rage, he was just weary and disappointed.

Blowing up at Batman like that – and, by extension, every other League member who had been present at the time – hadn’t exactly been the best idea he’d ever had. It was like he’d said: he was well aware that he understood very little about the way Batman operated, yet he’d followed his lead without issue for years. This whole situation, while far from ideal, had not been entirely unexpected.

That didn’t mean he was going to apologise for speaking his mind.

Harry stayed on the fringes as they went through the motions in the aftermath: arranging Wotan’s transport and imprisonment, post-mission debriefings, is-anyone-currently-in-danger-of-dying once-over medical checks. They were on the battlefield and then they were in the Watchtower. Harry spoke when spoken to, but otherwise stayed silent.

His head ached, in the way it always tended to after big team-up fights. Harry had so many little medical charms on so many different people that he had to entirely close off his awareness of his danger alerts when going into battle just to be able to focus properly. Now that it was over he could bring them back into focus, silencing the ones that spoke of injuries already sustained and dangers now gone until his head was peaceful again.

His head was not peaceful.

An array of charms on three people blared loudly at the centre of his awareness, refusing to quiet down. Icy fear curled deep in his gut. He knew exactly who those wards were attuned to. How long had they been screaming? When did it start? Why?

Harry swore darkly, voice low but not low enough to avoid detection, and spun away from the debrief in a sudden burst of movement, storming towards the transporters.

“Magician,” Batman called in warning, still mad. “You have _not_ been dismissed.”

“You’ll thank me later,” he shot back, right before he stepped out into the Hall of Justice.

In his wake, the League felt a ripple of unrest. Harry wasn’t prone to insubordination, but he had come to various members’ aid in times of danger when he shouldn’t have been stationed anywhere nearby. They’d noticed he had a way of knowing things that no one could quite figure out, but had never led them astray. If he was worried about something, perhaps it was another one of those feelings.

The debrief had mostly been finished anyway; they made a silent, unanimous decision to check out the situation instead.

**oOoOo**

Harry had known before he arrived that the Hall’s library would be empty – why would they be in danger there? – but seeing it was still a heavy blow.

Batman had ordered them to stay put, but Robin at the very least was practically immune to all of Batman’s looks and tones and expressions of disapproval, so disobeying him was hardly a stretch of the imagination. And considering the explosive events right beforehand, the likelihood of them being willing to sit around on their lonesome waiting for them all to come back had been pretty low.

Could they have gone after Roy?

It was possible, but no one liked being around Roy when he was well and truly angry about something, and he didn’t appreciate attempts at company either. Plus, he didn’t think it would have been very difficult for them to find Roy if they went looking, in which case all four of them should have been in danger.

So no, they hadn’t gone after Roy.

Harry turned to the computer, stretching his mind back through hours of fighting and talking to try and remember what had happened in that brief interlude between Roy storming out and everyone suiting up.

The door slid open beside him. Catching the blue of Superman’s costume at the edge of his vision the transmission suddenly came rushing back. He shifted, locked eyes with the alien, and demanded the coordinates for Project Cadmus.

Obviously startled by the aggressive non-sequitur, Superman rattled them off almost instinctively. Harry input them into his phone (the League’s computer systems tended to be too much for him to handle, but his phone was all of that without the extraneous systems he’d never use) and zoomed in on a digital map, committing it to his short-term memory.

Before anyone could question him he gave them all a look, said, “The kids are gone,” and twisted in a sharp circle on his heel, disappearing with a loud crack.

**oOoOo**

Harry landed unsteadily in the street in front of the Cadmus building.

No, he landed in the street in front of where the Cadmus building _should_ have been.

What he found instead was the ruins of a building, rubble and dust where there should have been walls and ceilings.

His heart seized in his chest. They couldn’t be _dead_ , if they were dead his head would be silent, but it was still ringing and ringing and ringing and-

There.

Harry stepped closer, gaze fixed on where he thought he saw some of the rubble shift.

Yes, there it was again.

Harry stalked forward, lightening and levitating debris away from the centre of the mess. Even if he was wrong, even if it wasn’t them and they’d run off and gotten themselves into trouble somewhere else, someone was trapped here, and he couldn’t call himself a hero, let alone a decent human being, if he left them to suffer just because they might not be who he was looking for.

The first person he uncovered stumbled when Harry levitated the hefty hunk of debris he’d been attempting to shift. They were dressed in a white bodysuit – torn and dusty from the rubble – and when they looked at him in surprise Harry found their face to be oddly familiar. That thought was immediately dismissed when he caught sight of the others sprawled around the man in white, slowly picking themselves up off the ground.

“Oh thank Merlin,” he breathed in relief, sinking to his knees as the panic loosened its grasp on him.

They were fine. They were in _so much trouble_ , but they were fine.

Once they had dusted themselves off, Robin contented himself with talking to the man in white, but Kid Flash zipped over to crouch awkwardly at Harry’s side, a hand hovering nervously over his shoulder.

“Yikes,” he said, in reference to the battle-torn condition of Harry’s clothes, although he was in no position to talk. “You okay man? You look kinda beat-up.”

Harry laughed, and was proud to say that it was only a tiny bit hysterical. He wrapped one sore arm around Wally’s shoulders and tugged him firmly into his side in a brief hug and said, “I think I should be saying that to you.”

Aqualad stood awkwardly between the two groups. Harry beckoned him over, accepting Wally’s help back to his feet and clapping a hand on Kaldur’s shoulder once he was close enough.

“You guys scared the shit out of me, pulling that vanishing act,” he said, pitching his voice so Robin could hear him too. “But you’re all in one piece, and that’s what matters most in the end.”

“Ye of little faith,” Robin joked, clambering over the rubble with the stranger in tow.

“Try that on Batman and see where it gets you.”

“Yeah,” Robin allowed, “Maybe not.”

Harry rolled his eyes fondly.

“Okay, reunion’s over. Who’s your new friend?”

The trio shared a series of unreadable looks before Kid Flash shrugged and said, “Superboy.”

Harry assessed the stranger – Superboy – and realised that, yes, that was why he looked so familiar. He’d never seen Superman look so guarded and lost before, but the face itself was explanation enough.

“I see,” he said. “In that case, it’s nice to meet you Superboy.”

But Superboy wasn’t looking at them anymore; he was staring up at the sky.

“Oh joy,” Harry murmured, following his gaze and catching sight of the incoming figures of the rest of the League. “Here comes the cavalry.”

No matter the situation, no matter the fact that they’d all been together when it happened, _everyone_ converging on Cadmus like this felt entirely like overkill. Wasn’t Superman the one who had brushed it off as a mere fire that could be handled by emergency services? And yet there he was, leading the charge.

One way or another, this was not going to be pretty.

Harry moved away from the teens, aching legs traversing treacherous ground to get to Superboy, to Superman, to somewhere to do _something_. He didn’t have any of the details, but Superboy was looking at Superman like he was the fucking _sun_ and he _knew_ , in his heart, in his bones, that Clark was not going to react favourably to any of this.

They didn’t even have to exchange words for Harry to be proven right.

Superman’s face was hard with suspicion and anger and Superboy just shattered, the hope and awe swallowed up by defensive anger in response.

Harry glanced around as the rest of the League purposefully encircled the wreckage, caging them in.

“I’m Superman’s clone,” Superboy announced, offering the information up freely, even knowing now what sort of reaction that statement was going to get him.

True to form, Superman’s expression soured even further. Batman stepped immediately into action, interrogating everyone and rounding up some monster that was trapped unconscious under part of the building (Harry hadn’t even noticed it, but it made sense that there had to have been a fight). Harry followed after Superman, determination guiding his steps, and cornered him at the edge of the wreckage with Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter.

Superman was agitated. And sure, he completely deserved to be confused and overwhelmed and maybe violated, Harry knew that, he did, but acting like he was the only person being affected by it all was total BS.

“That _thing_ shouldn’t exist,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “It could be a danger to society. It should be destroyed.”

There were a lot of things Harry wanted to say to that, but Wonder Woman beat him to the punch.

“That ‘ _thing_ ’ is just a boy. A _child_. That he even knows exactly what and who he is speaks to what his life must have been like until now. And you would deny him the right to existence? You have no right to single-handedly decide his fate.”

“I think I’m the _only_ person qualified to make that decision.”

“Can you even hear the words coming out of your mouth right now?” Harry smacked a hand against Superman’s chest, gritting his teeth against the pain that raced up his arm. “Are _you_ a danger to society? Should we erase _you_ while we’re at it? He didn’t ask to be your clone, you arse. If his only crime is existing then it isn’t something to be punished for.”

“You don’t know what they did to him down there–”

“And neither do you!”

“Harry…”

Harry shrugged off the placating hand J’onn rested on his shoulder.

“I know this is one of those life-changing, earth-shifting moments, okay? That this is weird for you. But this isn’t just about you; it’s also about him. You don’t have to suddenly become a dad or an uncle or a brother, no one’s asking that of you. Literally the only thing you have to do is _not_ be a total dick. Can you do that? Can you reign yourself in and have your little pity party in private?”

Superman glared at him.

“You’ve already destroyed the sparkling image he probably had of you. Don’t make things worse by shoving your negativity and angst in his face. If you don’t have anything nice to say then at least shut up until you’re somewhere he can’t hear you.”

“Peace, all of you,” J’onn interjected, trying to temper their argument into something less volatile.

“Fuck.” Harry tugged at his hair in frustration. He and Superman were both stubborn creatures at heart, and this argument would just go in circles if he stayed. “I don’t care anymore. If making him hate you is what makes you happy then go right on ahead. It’s your funeral.”

He threw an apologetic glance at Wonder Woman before leaving them to themselves.

Right now part of him wished he’d stormed out after Roy and avoided this whole mess altogether.

Speaking of Roy-

Harry sidled up to Green Arrow and have him a commiserating pat on the back. Maybe Oliver didn’t fight Batman’s decision, but he’d trusted Roy with the truth. It wasn’t Oliver’s fault – it wasn’t _only_ Oliver’s fault – that Roy had decided to leave. The permanency of that decision had yet to be determined, but they would deal with that when the time came.

“He promised he’d be in touch.”

Oliver nodded. “Apologise to him for me.”

Harry wanted to tell Oliver to apologise himself, but they both knew Roy wouldn’t listen if he tried, not until he’d had some time to cool off.

“Sure.”

Harry dropped his hand and continued over to where the four teens stood huddled together. Superboy’s expression had only gotten stormier since Harry left, so he knew he hadn’t been wrong about him being able to hear their argument – in fact, it seemed he was still listening in.

“Hey,” Harry said, reaching out slowly to catch Superboy’s attention before resting a hand on his shoulder. “The way I see it, Superman’s one of those people who hates surprises. And this? This whole thing is one hell of a big surprise. He’ll come around eventually. And if he doesn’t, I’ll break my hand on his stupid chiselled jaw just to make sure he understands where I stand on all this.”

“Why do you even care?” Superboy probably wanted to sound angry, but to Harry he just sounded sad. “It’s obvious no one wants me here. I’m just a stupid clone, right? I’m _dangerous_.”

Harry’s grip tightened on Superboy’s shoulder.

“I know you were listening,” he said softly. “But I’ll say it again if you want. In the same way that no one chooses their parents, you didn’t choose to be a clone. Your existence isn’t a crime. It’s the choices you make that decide who you are, and whatever choices you’ve made tonight have led you here, with Aqualad and Robin and Kid Flash. You have a whole life ahead of you now, and Superman doesn’t get to say what you do with it.”

“Dude, you were pretty awesome today,” Wally piped up. “We should totally team up again.”

“I agree,” Kaldur continued. “Your assistance was greatly appreciated. I would not be opposed to working together again, should you so desire.”

Robin jumped in with, “The more the merrier, right?”

Unless it was Superboy’s decision, those kids wouldn’t be letting the boy go without a fight. It was heartening to witness; trust and loyalty without the jaded hesitation that seemed to seep unwillingly in with age. Harry smiled.

Somewhere behind their small group someone awkwardly cleared their throat, cutting through the warmer atmosphere and putting a heartbreakingly desperate expression on Superboy’s face. Harry knew immediately who it was without even turning around; when he did, he frowned.

Superman wasn’t even trying to appear welcoming in the slightest. His face was blank, his shoulders were back, and his stance was non-threatening but also significantly uninviting. He also wouldn’t look Harry in the eyes.

“I… I’m too busy for all of… this.” Superman burst out, blunter than usual. If he was in a different mood, he might have made some encompassing gestures to encapsulate the entirety of the situation that was ‘this’; Harry certainly would have. “The League will sort something out.” After stumbling through what was ultimately a dismissal – why bother coming over in the first place if that was all he had to say? – he gave a stilted nod, turned, and took to the sky.

Coward.

Out of the corner of his eye Harry could see Superboy clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides, his body tense. His stance was defensive; he clearly wasn’t sure how to handle such a blasé rejection from the person he had essentially idolised. Even if he thought he might know what words to say to him, Harry knew better than to try it out in the open surrounded by witnesses. Superboy struck him as the type of person who didn’t like other people seeing his pain.

Harry let out a defeated sigh, allowing his exhaustion to seep through his body. The day had dawned with so much potential, too, but everything had gone to shit. First Roy, then Wotan, and now this. Plus, the Superboy situation aside, the chaos wasn’t quite done with them yet; with Batman in the lead, all three of the teens’ mentors were heading over.

It was turning into one of those days where Harry wished he’d never gotten out of bed, let alone allowed himself to be dragged into the hero business.

The recriminations were to be expected, Harry supposed. Disobeying direct orders, hacking the League’s database, recklessly endangering themselves and others; Batman would give that dressing down to anyone, regardless of age or position. But the last part? That sounded too much like a mission ban to him, and while he knew they weren’t technically _doing_ any League missions in the first place, it still rubbed him the wrong way.

Aqualad’s interjection rang out strong around them. “I am sorry, but we will. We did good work here tonight. The work you trained us to do. Together, on our own, we forged something powerful, important.”

A small smile lifted Harry’s lips at that, even as Flash stepped forward, unintentionally antagonising them. It took guts to talk back to Batman, but perhaps for Aqualad it took even more to talk back to his King. That meant he truly believed in what he was saying.

With the others rallying behind him, and even Superboy easily lending his voice to the argument, Harry didn’t see them backing down anytime soon. And really, what did they expect? You couldn’t just take a kid, teach them to be a hero, and then expect them to be content with playing side-kick forever. Roy was a painfully fitting example of that mind-set blowing up in their faces.

Harry kept his silence. They didn’t need his help on this. It was their fight. And, although it would be another unpredictable Batman CompromiseTM, he couldn’t help but think that Batman wasn’t going to even try to completely crush this newly strengthened comradery amongst the teens. Unity and teamwork was good for crime-fighting, after all, and a little bit of leeway as opposed to anger and resentment?

The strategist in him would win out over his indignation at their insubordination.

**oOoOo**

_Harry’s Apartment_  
Happy Harbour  
July 6 th2010

When Batman had told him he was ‘sorting something out’ Harry had bristled.

While Batman’s attitude towards Superboy was a vast improvement over Superman and his emotional ineptitude, Harry still got the uncomfortable feeling that Batman hadn’t quite finished shifting his mind-set from ‘Superboy as a clone’ to ‘Superboy as his own person’. It wasn’t that he necessarily thought anything _bad_ would come of that, he just didn’t anticipate much _good_ either; the dull middle ground.

Until a permanent arrangement could be decided upon, Batman had initially wanted to keep Superboy locked up – not imprisoned, but unable to get back to Earth – on the Watchtower under constant supervision. From a threat assessment standpoint, that probably made sense, but Harry wasn’t interested in all that. So he had countered that proposition with an offer to let Superboy stay at his place for a while.

Batman had tacked on a whole list of conditions before he was satisfied with that arrangement, but just because Harry had nodded along didn’t mean he was definitely going to follow all of them. Batman was cold logic and Harry was all about emotional stability (laughable, when he remembered some of his teenage years) and helping people.

So Harry had taken Superboy home.

Superboy was pretty withdrawn. Harry was sure part of it was because he was still processing the fact that he wasn’t at Cadmus anymore and what it meant for him to be awake and free of their mind-control, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to be worried. He’d barely spoken since Batman gave them the go ahead; once to thank him for letting him stay and again briefly when Harry took him out to buy some clothes. Ever since he woke up that morning, if he even slept in the first place, he’d been seated in the window seat in Harry’s living room, watching the world through the glass.

There wasn’t exactly anything Harry could do about it except leave him to gather himself.

**oOoOo**

Now, Harry was no wardmaster, but he’d picked up a thing or two here and there during his travelling years, and he’d like to say that, while probably not what anyone well versed in warding would call proficient, he was at least passable. Enough so to craft basic security wards for his apartment without any of them blowing up in his face, anyway.

There were only really two active wards: one was a proximity ward so he could tell when someone was approaching his door, and the other was to gently encourage any would-be thieves to ignore his apartment and go somewhere else instead. He also had a lockdown protocol, to physically bar anyone he hadn’t worked into the wards from his apartment and generally prevent access, but he was usually optimistic that he’d never have to activate those ones.

The strange thing was that Harry was almost convinced that Superboy could somehow sense the wards. He hadn’t been in the apartment for long at all, but in between his hesitant, silent exploration and his oddly morose people-watching he occasionally froze up a little when people brushed along the proximity ward. Harry had long learnt how to gauge directionality and destination from the ward – his attempts at a ward for reading intent had been mediocre at best and only added the tiniest bit of information to the proximity ward – and had become good at keeping it tucked away at the back of his mind, but for someone experiencing the strange tingling of wards for the first time it would indeed be attention-catching.

As Superman had never been to Harry’s apartment – nor did he know where it was – Harry couldn’t tell if it was a Kryptonian thing, or maybe just something unique to Superboy. No one else who visited had ever appeared to notice it, but they also didn’t usually stay long. Maybe everyone just thought his apartment had strange vibes or something.

Alone with his thoughts in a house with an extra occupant, Harry spent rather a lot of time pondering Superboy’s unique situation, and when someone _did_ cross the ward headed for his door he was dimly surprised to note that the process of noticing that fact started with catching Superboy’s reaction and was closely followed by a rapid flurry of knocks that could only come from a speedster.

Wally had a key to the apartment – so did Robin, Kaldur and Roy – but those were more for emergencies – not that Wally needed one when he could just phase through the door – and they were usually content to observe societal niceties like knocking and waiting to be invited inside.

Harry tore himself away from where he’d been watching Superboy watch the world pass them by and crossed the hall to the entryway.

Wally grinned up at him when he opened the door, but he was also fidgety in a manner that was more nerves or anxiety than excess energy. He called out a greeting to Superboy as he followed Harry into the apartment.

Since Superboy was in the lounge, Harry led Wally into his study – which, other than the desk and computer in one corner, was really more of a small private library than a study, although referring to it as a library in his own head made him feel uncomfortably bookish. Wally immediately flopped down on the couch, while Harry took a seat in his desk chair.

In all honesty, Harry’d been expecting a visit sometime soon from one of them, and with Wally’s abilities he’d definitely been at the top of the list.

“So,” Harry began lightly, watching Wally wriggle about on the couch to find the comfiest position. “What’s brought you to my humble abode this time around?”

“Nothing really, I just…” Wally sighed. He tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling like a cliché psychiatrist scene from a movie as he pondered how to word his thoughts. “I’ve been thinking a lot, you know? About everything that’s happened.”

“About Cadmus?” Harry prodded, despite being almost entirely certain that that wasn’t what Wally was here for.

“A little bit, I guess, but mostly… mostly about Speedy.”

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly feeling excessively tired despite having already known where this conversation was going to go. Reflexively, he glanced over at his cell phone which sat innocuously on his desk.

Wally caught the motion and followed his gaze.

“Has he… you know. Have you managed to talk to him yet?”

“No,” Harry admitted softly, a little reluctantly. “I haven’t. I tried calling several times and I sent a few texts as well, but so far he hasn’t responded to any of them.” He was a bit frustrated, both at himself and at Roy, who could surely spare the time to send even the briefest of texts, even if it was just asking to be left alone.

Wally’s disappointment was obvious.

“But, that being said, I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s an adult, and I have to trust he knows what he’s doing. And hey, maybe while he’s out there he’ll think up a better superhero name than Speedy.”

Wally laughed at that.

Ever since they first met Harry had wondered about the origins of that name. If it hadn’t been Oliver who talked about him and eventually introduced him, Harry would have assumed Roy was a speedster. That was the image a name like ‘Speedy’ portrayed. He got the feeling other people might have made the same assumption, so he’d always been glad he’d never said as much out loud. It might’ve set them off on a much rockier start.

Wally stayed for a while longer. They talked about trivial, everyday things like Wally’s classes and the time an elderly woman in the neighbourhood mistook Harry for her grandson, but every now and again their eyes would flicker over to the still-silent phone by Harry’s elbow.

The oppressive weight of uncertainty hung over them both. It would take more than a mere two days to adjust to the idea that Roy might not come back.

**oOoOo**

_Mount Justice  
July 8 th 2010_

Harry hid a yawn behind his hand as he escorted Superboy into the Cave. He hadn’t been sleeping well the last few nights, and being awoken by a mandatory but non-emergency summons when he could have been sleeping in hadn’t exactly started the day off well for him.

Everyone else was already assembled, waiting for them.

Batman, at the head of the group, skipped deftly over polite things like greetings and launched right into a speech once they arrived.

“This cave was the original secret sanctuary of the Justice League. We're calling it into service again. Since you four are determined to stay together and fight the good fight, you'll do it on League terms. Red Tornado has volunteered to live here and be your supervisor. Black Canary's in charge of training. I will deploy you on missions.”

“Real missions?” Robin asked sceptically, hip cocked and arms folded defensively across his chest. He had every right to be disbelieving. Even if the place had been cleaned up pretty nicely, they’d experienced a serious let-down less than a week ago which had proven that their definitions of certain things were sometimes at odds with the League’s.

“Yes,” Batman affirmed. “But _covert_.”

“The League will still handle the obvious stuff,” Flash chimed in, gesturing to his costume. “There's a reason we have these big targets on our chests.”

“But Cadmus proves the bad guys are getting smarter,” Aquaman added. “Batman needs a team that can operate on the sly.”

“The five of you will be that team.”

Harry blinked slowly, confused. They weren’t still counting Speedy were they? Even if he did come back, getting delegated to a childish covert ops team wouldn’t win them any favours with him.

“Cool,” Robin exclaimed, before the rest of the statement registered. “Wait, five?”

Batman stared behind the group, and the others turned to see what was happening. Harry observed them from where he was leaning against the wall.

“This is the Martian Manhunter’s niece, Miss Martian.”

“Hi.”

“I’m liking this gig more every minute,” Kid Flash muttered to Robin. “Ah, welcome aboard! I'm Kid Flash, that’s Robin, Aqualad. It’s cool if you forget their names.”

Rolling his eyes at Wally’s antics – he caught Flash doing the same – Harry smothered the laughter that wanted to escape. He’d obviously recovered pretty well from the bout of melancholy that had bought him to his house the other day.

“I’m honoured to be included.”

The way she spoke was just a tad too formal, which suggested she hadn’t been on Earth for very long. If nothing else, Harry figured it would be interesting to see her growth as she was exposed to pop culture.

The trio crowded around Miss Martian, but Superboy hung back, visibly unsure. It wasn’t Harry’s place to reassure him this time – they’d talked a little while he was staying at Harry’s place, but he needed positive reinforcement from sources other than Harry or he’d have a difficult time believing it wasn’t just Harry trying to be nice – but he did step over to him. A thought had occurred to him at Miss Martian’s introduction, and there was something he needed to say.

“I think Batman intends for you to live here.”

Superboy tore his gaze away from the teens to stare up at him in a silent query.

“I don’t know if Miss Martian has anywhere to stay, so she might live here too. He probably trusts Tornado and the Cave’s security systems to monitor you more than he trusts me. He’s a little paranoid like that. But if you don’t want to stay here, or if you ever need a break, my apartment’s always open to you. I just wanted you to know that you have options.”

“I…” Superboy frowned. The kid had a lot of frowns. Harry was halfway convinced he had one for every emotion, and that you could probably read entire stories from the slant of his eyebrows and the press of his lips. “Um, thanks?”

Harry smiled genially, taking the awkward words for what they were – confusion and mistrust but also hope and the genuine gratitude of being given choices instead of instructions.

Robin called out to them, beckoning Superboy over to the huddle of teens. Superboy went, after one final considering glance at Harry.

It was probably too much to hope that Superboy hadn’t noticed Superman’s absence, but hopefully they could even out some of that disappointment. Harry would have to try and talk to Clark again, but even though he was still kind of mad at the Man of Steel he could appreciate how difficult the whole situation must be for him. If he could only get it through his thick skull that that went both ways, maybe things would be a bit smoother.

Mother-henning a bunch of teenagers hadn’t exactly been his intention when he signed on for this superhero gig. Occasionally he spared a thought to what life would’ve been like if he’d just stayed in Britain, but that sort of thing had never been his imaginative strength, so it was usually a pointless exercise.

And anyway, regardless of would-haves or could-haves, this was his life now. There was no going back on that; he could only continue forwards.


End file.
